indigenous game

This weekend I’m going to Sydney for the Indigenous Game - the basis for the AFL paper I’ve mentioned before. This football game is played once a year at Telstra Stadium, the old Olympics venue, between the Sydney Swans and Essendon Football Clubs. These two teams have a strong tradition of including aboriginal players in their sides, and the winner of the game wins the Marn Grook trophy. The name is taken from the game known to have been played by aboriginal communities and rival totems in the past (it’s speculated whether AFL is a direct appropriation). So far there have been some interesting developments as I try to get the facts straight on how this special event game between Sydney and Essendon developed, and I’m gonna start writing them down as it all pieces together.

Originally I had thought Essendon Coach Kevin Sheedy was behind the initiative in conjunction with now retired star Essendon player Michael Long, but Sheedy’s office claim it was either the AFL or Sydney’s idea. I spoke with the events department for the Sydney Swans yesterday, and while they couldn’t give me any confirmation about whose ‘actual’ initiative it was, it was suggested that the CEO from 2002 was ‘probably’ involved, but that the CEO had since changed. The AFL cannot be contacted directly thru email because their website is tied up with some exclusive Telstra arrangement which automatically categorises (then seems to ignore) queries. I’m left to wonder, does anyone know this info?

In the past, activities took place outside the stadium before the match, involving elders and aboriginal groups from around the state and including storytelling, traditional dancing, a food festival and the Sea of Hands display. In 2003 and 2002 there was also a parade at the start of the game on the oval itself to recognise ‘Aboriginal All Stars’ from other sports and fields of endeavour like politics. Even Shakaya played!

The first year the game was held, the State Reconciliation Council helped bring 4000 aboriginal schoolchildren from around NSW to the game. The event was also specifically held during Reconciliation Week, as it was last year, but this year it’s not. So all I know for sure so far is that this year there will be no cultural festival planned to coincide with the game, and this change coincides with a change in CEO. Throughout the past three years, however, one thing has remained constant: the line on politics has stayed neutral. In 2002, Swans CEO Kelvin Templeton was quoted as saying the club ‘did not want to enter the political debate about reconciliation, but to celebrate the Aboriginal contribution to the game’ (The Age, May 24, 2002).

Indeed, Swans events have been at pains to stress that this year there would be no cultural festivities involved with the game, that it’s ‘just a regular game of footy’. I have been trying to get this clarified, I mean, it’s still called the Indigenous Game, and it’s hardly regular that there is a ‘welcome to country’ at the beginning of the game, and the mothers of Dean Rioli and Adam Goodes are invited to toss the coin at the start and present the trophy to the winning side at the end of the game (which is to happen this weekend). Surely in some sense this constitutes a special event, or a cultural event? I was then told that for any event involving aboriginal culture it’s normal and accepted practice to include a welcome to country, and that there is nothing extraordinary about that.

At this point I felt I was being out-PCd. What grates me is how smooth and squeaky clean this is as a way of avoiding concrete facts: like why the aboriginal population is apparently 3% of this country yet 6% of AFL footballers. Like why other special event games in the League calendar are premised on memorialising war, but the mere suggestion that there may have been a war right here, before Gallipoli, and with the very indigenous people only ‘recognised’ one game every year - and then for their ‘innate’ athleticism and extraordinary skills - is inconceivable. To me there’s something worth pursing in the following rationale, which remains the unswerving line from the Swans: ‘It’s not a celebration of aboriginal culture, there are no festivities involved. It’s just a way for us to acknowledge the special contribution of people like Adam Goodes to the team’. At the moment, I feel a bit cheated by this. It’s so very Liberal to deal with individuals (worthy ambassadors), not communities. Which is why I’m viewing this event thru the lens of a wider project on corporate nationalism. To me it seems worth fighting for what this game might have offered - a promising way to make a link between shared land and tradition.

More on this to follow.